HARRY'S HOME IN HEARTS OF FANS-FOR 50 YEARS

Harry Carabina, once an orphan in St. Louis, is entering his 50th year of broadcasting. The familiar voice known as Harry Caray seems like a longtime member of every Cubs fan's extended family.

The remarkable legacy of the Hall of Fame announcer will continue to be scripted this season and, if the 70-something Caray has his way, for many more to come, contrary to retirement rumors.

"I hope to do fifty more," Caray said, clearing his throat between innings of a recent Cubs exhibition game broadcast on WGN radio. "But we know that isn't possible. Nobody is immortal. I want to broadcast as long as the good Lord accepts me."

With baseball's Opening Day upon us, Caray looks forward to resuming his role as one of the game's most colorful, vibrant and passionate ambassadors. Caray dismisses speculation this will be his last year in the broadcast booth. Moreover, Dennis FitzSimons, president of Tribune Co. television, continues to value Caray highly.

"We are interested in having Harry as long as he wants to be here," FitzSimons said. "We consider him a huge asset."

Caray agrees: Tribune Co. (owner of the Cubs and WGN television) has treated him well and he has treated them well.

"If God is willing, I will continue to broadcast. I have a handshake agreement," Caray said.

While he isn't ready to retire, Caray says he wouldn't mind cutting back on his road schedule. Understandably, his gait is beginning to deteriorate, even though his enthusiasm remains at an all-time high. Road trips that span from San Francisco to Miami are becoming increasingly taxing, even for a man who could play endless hands of gin rummy on the team's charter flights.

After every night game, home or away, Caray has dinner and drinks. There are a number of restaurants and bars all over the nation that remain open after hours strictly to accommodate Caray's legendary nocturnal meanderings.

"I couldn't keep up with him," said former Cubs third baseman Ron Santo, now one of Caray's partners in the radio booth. "You have to be in shape to do that. And not exactly the kind of shape where you get up and jog each day."

Caray's career and life both were in jeopardy seven years ago when he suffered a stroke while playing cards near his off-season home in Palm Springs, Calif. He credits the fan mail for saving his life.

"My wife, Dutchie, brought over boxes of mail," he said. "I got the sudden realization I meant something to these people."

It has been Caray's love affair with the fans that has seen him veer far off the broadcast journalist's prescribed path. From his signature "Holy Cow" game descriptions to his fascination with spelling players' names backwards to leading fans on an off-key rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," Caray is his own creation.

"What's wrong with making people feel better?" Caray said. "We are involved in a people business."

Caray's upbeat personality belies the residue of depression from his childhood.

"Every Christmas, I would be very sad," Caray recalls. "Now, my kids are scattered all over the country. I could get them together and spend Christmas with them. But I have always wanted to be alone. I was always blue and I cried. I did not want to subject anybody else with that."

Caray was able to transform his hardships as a child into a burning desire to succeed in broadcasting. When kids teased him in school about his humble upbringing, Caray tried to deflect it and keep it from hurting him.

"But it did hurt, and that stuck with me," he said.

All the way to baseball's Hall of Fame, where Caray was voted into the bradcasters' wing in 1989.

"A big thrill out of Cooperstown was the realization I was one of three generations doing major-league baseball at the same time," said Caray, referring to his son, Skip, with the Braves, and grandson, Chip, with the Mariners.

Everyone, it seems, has a favorite Harry Caray story.

Ned Colletti, the former Cubs vice president who had the honor of informing Caray of his Hall of Fame induction, offers this anecdote on Caray's vitality:

"We got into New York at about 3 a.m. and all the players were asleep on the bus coming from the airport," Colletti recalls of the team's arrival for a 1985 Cubs-Mets series. "Before we got to the hotel, Harry got up and walked to the front of the bus. He said: `Bussy, open the door.' And Harry disappeared down a side street, into the darkness.

"The next day, around the batting cage, I said to Harry: `Wasn't it kind of late to be heading out for a drink?' And Harry answered: `Son, once in a while, you owe it to yourself.' "

Caray began his broadcasting career in 1943 with WJOL in Joliet. He also worked at WKZO in Kalamazoo, Mich., before he returned to St. Louis as the Cardinals' play-by-play announcer. He worked Cardinals games for 25 years. After one season in Oakland, Caray came to Chicago in 1971. He was the voice of the White Sox for 11 seasons, teaming up with Jimmy Piersall for a sort of maverick brand of uninhibited commentary.

With the Cubs, Caray is clearly the star in his broadcast stints with Steve Stone on television and Thom Brennaman and Santo on radio. But his colleagues don't mind subjugating themselves to Caray's celebrity status.

"Anything I can do for the fellows I work with, I do," he said. "How would I frighten anybody?' I wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, and that is the way I go to bed."

One of the simmering questions hanging over the broadcast booth is who will succeed Caray when the inevitable becomes reality.

Stone, a former Cubs and Sox pitcher who won a Cy Young award with the Orioles, has worked with Caray for 12 years.

"Occasionally, Harry will get mad at me, and I know that is hard to believe, but I tell him: `Harry, your job is not mine to get,' " Stone said. " `I am not trying to make you look bad. My idea is to make you look as good as possible and for the broadcast to look good.' "

Stone endorses Brennaman as a natural successor, whenever that day arrives.

"(WGN) will bring in another play-by-play man (on TV)," Stone said. "I think it is going to be Thom Brennaman.

"Long ago, (WGN) took the play-by-play away from me and decided I would be a color man. And that's fine. I don't mind that. But I have had to assure Harry any number of times: `Don't look at me as your heir apparent with my hand on your back, pushing you out of the door.' "

Stone has had to serve as Caray's straight man in many unintentionally comical on-air episodes.

"It is very easy for people to point out what Harry isn't," Stone said. "They say he is not poetic like Vin Scully. He is not lyrical like Bob Costas. He is not a wordsmith like some of the other greats. But he is the single greatest salesman of the game that ever lived. I believe the game will suffer a huge loss when Harry decides to stop.

"So what if he mangles a few words and gets some names wrong. In the end, what difference does it make? The object of baseball is for everyone to enjoy themselves. In the seventh inning, no matter where we go, everybody stands up and looks to the booth, looks to Harry. He is a people magnet.

"I think people should overlook a malaprop or two or a mispronunciation of one of the names, and just say: `Look, let's enjoy him while he is here.' "

Brennaman is the son of longtime Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman.

"The first time I got a chance to meet Harry was when I was 17," Brennaman said. "Here comes this guy coming around the hall and I said to myself: `There he is!' My dad wasn't there to introduce me to him or anything. I introduce myself, and he gives that smile of his and that little chuckle and laugh. He said: `Hey, Tommy, how ya doin'?' It was a great thrill."

Brennaman said he is savoring every moment of working with Caray.

"Let's face it. You don't know how much longer he is going to be around," he said. "So the last two years, in particular, I have come to cherish those days when I get to sit next to him.

"I will find myself during the game, when I am off the air in the middle three innings, just watching him. Just to be able to get a picture in my mind of him. Trying to remember little things that he said and things he did. I just think the guy is the greatest. I mean, I love him and I love being around him."

When the Cubs arrive at an airport or hotel, more fans will clamor toward Caray than any Cub player.

"Harry is bigger than anybody in the game-player, coach, manager, any of them," Brennaman said.

"I don't want to sound like a nickel-and-dime psychologist, but I don't think it is just coincidence Harry Caray was an orphan and had all of those thoughts about not being cared for or not being wanted," Brennaman said. "I think he is very eager for how people receive him now. I think that has something to do with his past in a lot of ways."

Estimates of Caray's age range from 73 to a more plausible 77.

"The amazing thing about him to me is his recall," Brennaman said. "He will remember a game in 1948 and remember the count and the weather and everything. I can't even remember what happened three days ago."

"When the game is on the line and it is an exciting ballgame, there is nobody who describes a double down the line or triple off the wall or a diving catch like Harry does," Santo said. "And yet, there are games that are very quiet and very slow and maybe out of reach, and he will bring in the stories and keep things moving. That is what people love. Harry can put people into the stands, like a Henry Aaron or Willie Mays. I wish players had as much enthusiasm on the field as he has in the booth."

Caray paused when asked to say how he wished to be remembered once he vacates the broadcast booth.

"I think people will remember me as a guy who brought a little enjoyment while he broadcast," Caray said. "I think even my detractors will have to tell you I am honest. I am honest in my descriptions, and I am honest in my life. I know that you only come around in this world one time. You had better try to enjoy yoursef and try to find as much happiness as you possibly can. For a poor orphan boy from St. Louis, I think I have done pretty well."